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As Trevor called your attention to earlier, the SB Nation NHL writers have done a big time collaborative effort to put forward our idea of the NHL Awards, combining the popular appeal writers with the analytical folks to put forward what we hope will be an enticing alternative to the abomination awards ceremonies usually are. The brainchild of Travis Hughes (and our super-secret message board), we followed the awards voting format (1 point for 3rd place vote, 2 points for 2nd, and 3 for 1st place) and the respondents (at least one from every SBN blog) threw down their votes. I was AIH's sole respondent because Trevor's been tangled up in podcast wires for the last week and Gabe's busy asking poor children in developing countries what their favourite football team is before telling them their team sucks (with graphs!).
My vote for the Vezina (with explanation) after the jump.
After much rumination, I had to go with:
1st Place: Henrik Lundqvist
2nd Place: Mike Smith
3rd Place: Jonathan Quick
...which would probably be sacrilege for Trevor, though his consolation is that Jon Quick won the overall vote. The Vezina goes to the best goaltender for that particular year, and when Mr. Myrland over at Brodeur is a Fraud says that King Henrik played in a bit tougher division than the other two, I'll take that when there's really no other way to decide such a close set of performances. But, you say, what about putting Mike Smith above Mr. Quick? Plain and simple, Smith played behind a team that gave up more shots-against per game, by a wide margin. If there weren't so many extraneous storylines revolving around the Phoenix Coyotes franchise, we'd be focusing on his incredible season.
Use the comments for your own votes and slamming my picks, because that's how we do.